Rothlisberger & Rodgers could have been Bills

[RyanC883]

The reason so many fans keep reliving the past Bills drafts is because they have no confidence in future Bills drafts. Its true this will only be Nix's second draft but with no impact players or game changing players drafted last year there is no confidence things will change. Just show me the impact players from last years draft. Thought so, there weren't any. Bills fans have every right to be very concerned.

 

This guy has a point. You need an impact player, esp. w/ the first and second round picks. Bills fans should be worried. The Steelers ALWAYS get impact players in the 1st and 2nd round (Pouncy, Ben, Woodley, Timmons, etc.) No reason to re-hash the draft picks we should have made, but the point is whether we can FINALLY get it right in the first 2 rounds. The pressure is rightfully on the Bills to quit wasting picks and creating a decade of futility. I don't care what position we pick, we need someone who can contribute on day one and make this team win more games.

[DreReed83]

Coaches don't ruin players, players ruin coaches. The idea that this team has had incompetent coaches is nonsense. Now some of our coaching selections haven't been top notch, but none have been incompetent to the point of making or breaking a player's career. To think that JP Losman, who has been coached by Mularkey, Jauron, Fassel & Carroll and has only been successful against minor league competition would ever amount to anything with different coaching is insane.

 

This goes both ways. Players can make coaches look great and vice versa. Look at what Chan's done for Fitz and Stevie. On the flipside, look at what McNabb and Haynesworth's done for Shanahan. Coaches can make players look bad just as easily as players making coaches look bad.

[Albany,n.y.]

This goes both ways. Players can make coaches look great and vice versa. Look at what Chan's done for Fitz and Stevie. On the flipside, look at what McNabb and Haynesworth's done for Shanahan. Coaches can make players look bad just as easily as players making coaches look bad.

Obviously Chan got Steve Johnson off the bench, but if Chan is a difference maker, why didn't he try to do the same for Hardy? It comes down to talent, Johnson was & always will be better than Hardy. After the team took Trent's security blanket, AKA Josh Reed, away, Chan had to either get Johnson or Hardy off the bench. Chan made better decisions on wide receiver use, but he didn't do anything other than let the guys play, Roscoe included before his injury.

As far as Fitzpatrick, I've always thought he was the same player in 2009 as 2010. The stat boys may pull up some stats to debate it with me, but the bottom line is Fitzpatrick proved his value in 2009 when he was the main QB in 5 of the team's 6 wins. How soon people forget how well Fitzpatrick performed when Perry Fewell was coach. Remember how Fewell was bragging about the big ones Fitzpatrick had when he audibled into a long passing play in a Bills win. Remember how desperate Fewell was to get back Fitzpatrick for the Indy game, and how well he performed in the weather?

I think a coach can bury a talented player on the bench, but even that can't ruin him. Talent will eventually surface, if not with one team, with another. The only reason Bills coaches yanked players like Losman & Edwards was because they weren't cutting it on the field. Losman's career wasn't ruined because Mularkey yanked him when he sucked. Losman's career was ruined because he wasn't good enough, ditto with Edwards.

Shanahan is a great coach when he has John Elway at QB, other than that, he's average. I don't know if anyone can win in Washington with Danny boy there. He's gone through Marty, Spurrier, Gibbs, Zorn & now Shanahan. Like the Bills, who the coach is doesn't seem to matter. The Redskins don't know how to put a roster together and the only common denominator is the owner.

[MyHorseAteTheKid]

And we also could've had Tom Brady too. We also couldve had Haloti Ngata, could've had Greg Jennings, could've had Vincent Jackson, Vince Wilfork, Lawrence Timmons, could've traded up a spot for Patrick Willis; could've drafted David Harris or Lamar Woodley, could've had Michael Oher and Ryan Clady, Joe Flacco, could've taken Desean Jackson, or Ray Rice, could've taken Jamal Charles instead of Chris Ellis, could've had Marques Colston, Larry Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Osi Umenyura. Could've even had our TE in Jason Witten, and could've picked up Antonio Gates off the undrafted FA list. WOW. Look at what we could've had.

 

So what's the point of this thread?

 

All this coulda, shoulda, if only the Bills had a GM that was qualified to be a GM..

[RealityCheck]

I know it is shoulda coulda woulda but..

 

In 2004, we traded up to Losman

 

Had we used the extra picks to trade up just THREE spots, we could have had Rothlisberger

 

In 2005, had we NOT traded up for Losman, we could have drafted Rodgers

 

The ironic thing is that supposedly we traded up to keep Green Bay from Drafting him

 

On another point, it kills me seeing all of these 1st and 2nd year players start and conribute on super bowl teams (Quarles, Matthews, Raji, Bulaga,...) especially since we could have had most of them, and our draftees can not even dress during the regular season

I hear that living in the past is healthy.

[EldaBillsFan]

Hindsight and in the first game they played for us they could have blown an ACL?

[Lurker]

Do we have to continually review all the bad trades and drafts from the past decade?

Sadly, we do...given the turnover of long-time 'Wallers who've discussed this ad naseum for years, in favor of newbs who've just discoverd that 'water is wet'.

[RuntheDamnBall]

Y o u c a n o n l y t r a d e w i t h t e a m s t h a t w a n t t o t r a d e w i t h y o u.